Blackwell’s History of the Latin Language
Blackwell’s History of the Latin Language
Authors Clackson and Horrocks have set out to supersede Palmer’s “The Latin Language” of 1954 which has been the standard text on the history of the language but in need of an update. They certainly succeed in presenting a more modern approach along with the latest scholarship, however it requires considerable pre-knowledge to get the most out of it, not only in classical Latin but also in Indo-European linguistics.
After the initial consideration of the emergence of Latin from Proto-Indo-European, the second chapter analyses the other Indo-European languages of ancient Italy. A third brief chapter addresses the beginnings of the standardisation of Latin in pre-history, before the fourth on Old Latin from c. 400 – 150 BC. The next chapter treats in detail the standardisation process over the 3rd – 2nd centuries BC.
Chapter six is on the Elite Latin of the late Republic and early Empire, with an interesting discussion of the effect of Greek on the language, and also the influence of Cicero. Following on from this the penultimate chapter looks at sub-Elite Latin with detailed examination of some specific examples.
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